Some websites, e.g., wikipedia, have a Sandbox where contributors can play around and practice posting stuff and seeing what happens when they format a footnote one way or another or if an image looks right when posted.  

Lots of TER newbies can't figure out how to do things, such as post a picture.  

Does anybody think that TER should provide a Sandbox for testing posts, pics and so on?  

Personally, I don't think TER needs a Sandbox because there are very few things to have to learn about posting and very few options or variations. The most troublesome things is posting a pic and the trouble usually has to do with finding an off-site hosting site.  

So I don't think TER needs a Sandbox but I wanted to the suggestion out there before someone else comes up with it

I actually asked about it several months ago. Didn't know to call it a sandbox, I think I referred to it as post preview. But yeah, being able to see how your post will look once it's posted, pics, links and all. Good idea.

Now that you mention it again, PREVIEW not only lets a newbie try to figure out how to post a pic but it gives regular posters a chance to edit their post before having it go live. Multi-purpose Preview.

Sandbox is just a place to scratch around to see what things look like without ever making a live post

Maybe but the pic issue isn't something that either of these solve and the post are hardly complex layouts that need careful planning about margins, fonts, where text wraps around the images....

All that's going to happen, I suspect is that they'll do that then come here and ask what they are doing wrong and either be spoon fed the manual or told to RTFM in a polite way.

But maybe there's some more on the Ad boards that would make the preview a good value added -- and actually if so I'd say TER might offer it as a full VIP only service rather than something everyone, or even every provider, has access to.

Yes, there are times when folks come to the NB not realizing they need their pics hosted off site and they are just posting a link to it here, rather than loading the pic itself. Preview probably won't help them figure that out, true. But sometimes even people who know that part just don't get the pic in the post somehow. I guess something got messed up. I've PM'd a few ladies to say "do you know your pics aren't showing up", they were all surprised.

Also, anyone posting a link. Sometimes busted links get posted. Post preview I've seen on other boards lets you test your link before your post goes live. Have you ever seen someone quote a post and put their own remarks inside the quote? Preview would probably alert someone to that. The major flaw with preview is you have to actually use it for it to work. Yes, people could check on their posts right after they go live, but with the moderation, that gets tricky obviously.  

You're right, it would probably help on the ad boards a lot. Sometimes they copy paste from their own sites and it looks funny when it gets here.

Since moderated posts don't go right up, put up the post, then go to "My TER" and hover the cursor over "More."  The drop-down will include "My Board Posts" and you click on it.  You'll get a list of your posts in chronological order.  Any post not yet approved will show up as "New."  If you click on it you can read it to see if any attachment or photo is correct and clickable.  If there's a problem of any kind, click on the "Edit" function and fix it.
Just one of the many benefits of being moderated! LOL!

Post the message in a thread a few pages away from the first page.  After you've reviewed it and it looks good, create the post where it needs to be and copy the content from your draft, then edit the subject line on the draft to "DELETE" to make it go away.

As I said, it's kludge-y, plus there may be work for Admin to remove the draft (unless that's automatic with DELETE) so they may get pissed if you do it a lot.